Two of the most popular designs now familiar to this harbour are the 2824 TEU container ships built at the Hyundai Mipo yard at Ulsan, and a series of bulk/lumber carriers from Japan's Imabari Shipbuilding group.
Seventeen of the container ships built from 2003 to 2008, have now made 165 visits to Port Chalmers since January 8, 2007.
They vary from 28,592gt to 28,927gt, with eight of them being 28,616gt vessels. With the exception of two owned by Swiss interests, they are owned by German companies.
Latest to call, for the first time last week, was Santa Belinacompleted in October 2006, and a unit of the Reederei Claus-Peter Offen fleet of Hamburg.
Next weekend another identical 28,616gt sister ship from the same fleet, Cap Beaufort, will be here on its 18th and last visit.
The ships' arrival could also close an interesting chapter of local visits by owned or chartered Cap-named vessels.
These links with the Hamburg-Sud group, date back to January 19, 1961, when Cap Corrientes visited Dunedin.
A significant change to the services took place on June 26, 1971, when Columbus New Zealand berthed to inaugurate the company's Australia-New Zealand-east coast North America (ECNA) container ship service. But the company withdrew its vessels from Port Chalmers following the departure of Columbus Canterbury on October 24, 2002.
Local calls on the same run, now known as the Trident service, were reinstated with the arrival of the chartered Cypriot flag, Cape Martin on June 10, 2007. This vessel was followed on July 1, 2007, by Cap Beatrice, one of six chartered sisters that spent time in this service until replaced by the larger 41,483gt, 3630 TEU Bahia class ships last year.
Cap Beaufort, whose build name was Santa Brunella, was delivered from the builders on March 25, 2008. Its first appearance here was on August 19, 2008. The ship's next call will bring the total number of visits by the six sisters to 75.
Scheduled to depart from here next Sunday, Cap Beaufort will head to Timaru, then on to Napier, where it is due on February 28.
While there, it is planned that containers loaded at the South Island ports for ECNA, plus Europe and the Mediterranean hubbed through Cartagena, will be transferred to Balthasar Schulte.
This brand new 39,334gt, 4253 TEU vessel is on its maiden voyage, having only been completed earlier this month at Jiangsu by the Jiangsu Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Company.
More than 30 of the popular Imabari-built vessels of around the 17,000gt mark have now visited this harbour. Latest to call for the first time last week to load logs, was the Marshall Islands-registered Gladiator.
This 17,018gt vessel was delivered by the Shimanami yard on January 18, 2008, to Front Century Maritime, part of the Evalend group, of Athens.
Following this vessel's departure on Saturday, the berth was occupied by Cape Scott which had also taken on logs at the Leith wharf. On its passage to Dunedin, two days earlier, it passed Maipo River berthed at Ravensbourne. Their chance meeting was of special interest, for it was the first time that two Hong Kong-registered units of the Pacific Basin fleet had caught up with each other here. Both were also first-time visitors.
Maipo River (20,987gt) entered service in May, 2009. The ship was the fifth of the Silver Lake class to be built at the Jiangmen Nanyang shipyard, and is the fourth of them to berth here.
Cape Scott is an older 17,377gt vessel that joined the fleet in June, 2005. Completed by the Shin Kurushima yard at Onishi in May, 1997, it entered service as JA Aladdinmdream, registered at Manila. New owners bought it in April, 2002, transferred it to the flag of Panama, and gave it the name Lady Sumako.
Under that name the ship berthed at Port Chalmers on October 5, 2002, to load logs for Inchon. Then before receiving its present name the ship operated as Aqua Venus from August, 2004.
